Verity
by jelenamichel
Summary: Companion piece to my story Perception. A series of five vignettes broken into see, hear, touch, smell and taste that present the Tony and/or Ziva side of what Gibbs witnessed in that story. Tiva.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So begins the companion piece to **_**Perception**_**. These five vignettes (geez, I hate that word) will be the Tony and/or Ziva side to what Gibbs witnessed in that story. You really do need to read **_**Perception**_** first. Don't worry, it's not very long. Go check that out and then come on back here. We'll wait.  
>Also? Total wackiness city – It often takes about five days for reviewsalerts to reach my inbox because…I don't know why. Insert ongoing fanfiction dot net website issues excuse here, I guess. So if you're kind enough to review and I don't reply, it's because there are technical difficulties. Not because I'm lazy. Although I am also that.  
>Disclaimer: Disclaimed.<strong>

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><p><strong>Part 1: See<strong>

She loves seeing him like this.

There's no denying that her partner won the genetic lottery at conception. Recently viewed photos of his ridiculously attractive parents in their 20s confirmed to Ziva that junior was always going to turn heads. Indeed, he's spent 40 years reaping the benefits.

The face he dons every day in tandem with tailored suits and carefully coiffed hair draws attention and attraction from people of both genders and all ages. She sees him use it to his advantage on witnesses, shop assistants, lawyers and nurses. She has no doubt he used it to literally charm the pants off women across the eastern seaboard. And she knows he has used it on her to dig himself out of trouble, often with great success.

Yes, as far as faces go, his everyday face sits comfortably on the above average curve of the bell.

But now…

Something happens to his face when he's truly relaxed and happy. The lines disappear, his eyes brighten and his smile feeds her happiness. It takes 10 years off him, and she thinks that if his face is a weapon when he's cruising by on 70 per cent of its effectiveness, it's a goddamn killer when he's working it at its peak.

And he thinks _she's_ the lethal one?

When he's like this, it's easy to forget that they've ever had a professional relationship. (Although really, have they ever?) She forgets he's her look-and-tease-but-don't-touch partner and finds it far too easy to emit her "back off everyone, this stake is claimed" vibes. This is the face that truly tests her dedication to the concept of professionalism, and makes her doubt that just having him in her life at all is really enough to satisfy her.

As they share a table in the dim bar her spidey sense begins to tingle and she knows the Rule Keeper is near. This should be the cue for her pheromones to stop trying to smother him, and for her expression to stop being so openly affectionate. But she's not ready to give up this indulgence in Tony's company just yet. On a half-crazed whim she decides that Gibbs can shove his judgment and scorn until he decides to stop lurking on the fringes of voyeurism. She's not a gambler, but she'd bet the man won't actually do much more than glare and slap if he catches his agents _in flagrante delicto_.

She walks the line when she reaches out to touch him, but has at least enough presence of mind to make the touch appear gently mocking. She strokes the back of his head where she knows he must be tingling, and something deliciously electric fires through her when his flutter closed and he leans into her touch. His 10 o'clock shadow scrapes the oh-so-sensitive skin along the inside of her arm, the barest brush of his bottom lip warms her up like a furnace, and her entire arm erupts in gooseflesh. Half a second later his eyes are open again, and she tries to think of a time when she's ever seen his expression so blatantly wanting.

"You're baiting the angry beast," Tony warns her, clearly feeling the eyes of _el jefe_ on their intimate moment. But the intensely personal smile he favors her with suggests that he admires her gall. Good thing, because that look on his face has just made her mind up to start enforcing her claim on him proactively.

She gives him an acknowledging wink and tells herself that enough is enough—she has to take him home tonight. The bold thought releases a rewarding wave of endorphins through her body and prematurely sends blood running south. She has enough decency to not grab him in public though, and decides she needs to hold onto the thought for a little while longer. At least until they've shared a token drink with their yet-to-arrive coworkers.

Her hand drops from his head and falls atop his as they reach for _her _beer at the same time. She raises an eyebrow, a reminder that he begged off alcohol tonight because of something to do with an hours-old health kick, and he removes his hand only to clamp his eyes on the bottle as it travels to her lips.

She loves seeing him like this.

And yes, she is _definitely_ taking him home tonight.

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><p><strong>I guess it goes without saying that this story is out of canon...heh.<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Continuing the Tony and/or Ziva POV vignettes based on what Gibbs saw/heard/etc in my story **_**Perception.**_**  
>Apologies for the delay on this one. Real life is crazy busy, and there's also a bunch of imagery and metaphor in this that may not have been appropriate to post a month or two ago.<br>With a nod to the episodes **_**Cloak**_** and **_**Dagger**_**, although this story/chapter is not related to those. And a warning for bad language and angst.  
>Disclaimer: Disclaimed.<strong>

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><p><strong>Part 2: Hear<strong>

He hates hearing them yell like this.

They argue just about every day they're together. It's what they do. It's how they communicate. It's how they solve problems and make decisions. He figures that so long as there's always a purpose to the argument and a resolution at the end, arguing is no cause for alarm.

But this…

He's so mad now he can barely see straight. He's lost control of himself and he's not proud, but he can't keep his anger inside. Her words about _training_ and her dedication to _responsibilities_ have his blood pressure so high he's actually dizzy, and he can't make himself calm down. He can't make himself stop yelling. Because this woman who has become an indispensable part of his life acted today like she didn't much care if she left it.

The argument they're having—it's actually closer to a brawl—is conducted in the bowels of the NCIS building where there are no witnesses to the carnage taking place. They're screaming at each other over whether she should have fought the men who held guns to Tony's head in an op that morning. He is adamant that she should not have, but his IDF and Mossad-trained partner slash girlfriend just as adamantly opposes his position. When the guns came out in the warehouse so did the ninja, and she sliced through the pack of goons like a whirling dervish, leaving blood, broken bones and a shaking Tony in her wake.

Her whirling continues now as they fight, except now she's more like a storm that's feeding and growing on their shared fury. She spins on him in the cramped hallway and he swears he feels the whip of wind against his face as the growing tornado in front of him sucks away his oxygen. She rages about partnership and having his back no matter what the cost, and he feels her. He honestly does, because he knows wild dogs couldn't pull him away from protecting her six. But wild dogs weren't the issue today. Diplomacy was, but she panicked and fucked up and now she's too proud to admit she was wrong.

She raises her chin defiantly and he knows the look that enters her eyes. He sees it when she speaks of loyalty and dedication that she believes is just. She insists again that she was right to protect him. "I would have gotten _you_ out," she repeats one more time, and this time he hears the stress in the words. She wasn't planning on joining him. She was creating a diversion for his escape. And she was completely aware that she would have been killed for it.

In that moment, he hates her as much as he loves her. His hands itch to close around her neck, but he doesn't know whether they'd squeeze hard or pull her to his mouth. He physically steps away from both options and plows his hands through his wind-whipped hair.

"At what cost?" he demands, and he's never heard his voice this hard. "I get out and you don't? That's not an option, Ziva. That's _never_ an option. It's you and me. Not one or the other. _You and me._ We're both in or we're both out. Always." He advances on her again and grabs her elbow in the most violent action he will ever take against her. "_Do you understand me?_"

"That is not practical for every situation," she slings back, her words slicing him to the bone. "Given the choice between you and I, the others would not trade—"

Her martyr's argument sends the pressure in the hallway spiking so high he can no longer stand it. His fist goes through the wall before he realizes his body is moving as he tries to release some of the damaging energy between them, but it only serves to feed it. He knows he should just say _"Thank you and I love you, but I feel you're being quite selfish." _But he's not thankful that her actions could have gotten her killed, and they don't say _"I love you"_ yet, and he lost his tact long ago. His carefully measured intent instead comes out as "_fucking selfish bitch_".

He's not proud of his words or his blatant bullying, and her open shock makes him feel sick even as he thinks he's landed the final blow. He half expects her to fold now and the storm to weaken, but that just goes to show how much he has left to learn about her. The funnel of wind around her suddenly expands another three feet before she explodes with a fury he's never seen.

She shoves him in the chest so hard that he bounces off the wall behind him, and in that moment of violence he hears Gibbs' voice in his head reciting Rule 12. It's never been clearer to him why the rule exists, and he begins to think that maybe…maybe this should be the end of them.

He starts laying the foundation to make her hate him. Hate makes it easier to walk away, and he doubts he'll be strong enough to be the one to desert her. His throat is tight as he pushes out derision for her "awesome plan", and then he advances on her while she blinks and wanes. He baits her with the most condescending tone he can find within him and talks down to her about youth breeding impulsiveness. The look on her face bruises his heart and self-respect, but he pushes on until she looks like she's about to break. There is not a smidgen of joy in this for him, and in the end he can't make himself push her over the edge. After all, it is his sworn duty to protect her from such falls.

Ziva senses his moment of weakness and exploits it as he did hers. The eye of the storm has passed and now she's back with her second wind to beat him down and finish him off. She continues to rage back at him, all red cheeks and wet eyes and wild hair, and Jesus, maybe he doesn't need to make her hate him in order to break them apart. Because he's hating her enough for both of them right now, and he's starting to think that yes, if it comes down to it, he will be able to walk away from her if it means this horrific destruction between them ends.

He hates hearing them yell like this.

And maybe the only way to avoid it again is to abandon this relationship for good.

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><p><strong>If you've read <strong>_**Perception**_**, you know not to panic now, right?  
>And if you haven't read <strong>_**Perception**_** and you're panicking, then go read it and calm down. **


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Shorter than the last, but I'm just putting out whatever comes into my head.  
>Disclaimer: Disclaimed.<strong>

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><p><strong>Part 3: Touch<strong>

She can't stop touching him right now.

Her hands have mapped his skin dozens of times in the last few months. Usually she is admiring the texture, the taste, the smell. Usually she is eliciting gasps and moans and sighs. Usually, touching his skin leads to ecstasy and satisfaction.

But now…

Her touch is chaste but she considers it to be the most important she's ever given him. As she sits beside his still body and holds his too-cool hand, her deeply buried romantic imagination sees herself grounding him. She is holding on to his soul so that it won't leave him like she knows it wants to. She is holding on because she desperately wants to keep him with her.

She can feel Gibbs hovering a few feet behind her. Hours ago he took her into a small, hidden place and nudged her just enough to tip her off balance and make her break. She indulged in the feeling of oblivion until she realized that dragging it out would only prevent her from ever finding her way back. A nod acknowledged his kindness before her eyes begged him not to do it again. She knows he understands her needs, even if they are at odds with his.

She knows he itches to reach out to her again. Not to comfort her, but to console himself. But as much as she loves her father figure, she cannot indulge his needs right now and repay his act of kindness. In fact, she finds herself hoping that Abby's theory of his powers of telepathy is sound, and launches into an internal monologue with foolish hope.

_Don't touch me, Gibbs. If you touch me I will fall apart. And if I fall apart I will give up. I cannot give up. I cannot leave him to his death. Never screw over your partner. Never leave a man behind. I have to see this through. I have to keep it together. If I don't, I will stop breathing. And what if I stop breathing and then he doesn't? If I stop breathing when he's not there to try to convince me otherwise, he will be so mad. And he will blame himself. He is good at blaming himself. So if you don't want my death on Tony's conscience, don't touch me._

Gibbs holds his ground. Tony doesn't stir. And he calls _her_ stubborn?

Despite her audience she lets her fingertips graze over the inside of his wrist. In the normal world, the one in which he smiles and moves and reacts to stimulus, it is a tickle that usually makes him jump and snatch his hand away with a laugh. Tonight he is stone encased in carbon and surrounded by steel. Her touch cannot reach him.

Her scattered, panicked and desperate thoughts suggest that since telepathy worked on Gibbs it might also work on Tony. She considers the idea no sillier than simply holding his half-dead hand to guide him back to consciousness.

_Please touch me back. Remember when you told me you'd wanted to touch me for so long? Touch me now. Touch me anytime. You can feel me up in the bullpen whenever you want if you just make the effort to touch me now. I promise I won't be mad at you for saving my life. I won't yell. I won't glare. You were so mad when I tried to save you and I know we screamed ourselves sick. I never want to do that again. Even though I am furious with you for putting yourself in this position to protect me, I promise I won't scream and I won't throw it back at you. So if you are just trying to avoid another fight with this stupid not-waking-up act, stop it. Come back. I will even let you win and say "I love you" first if you do. Please just touch me._

He continues to ignore her, and tears burn the back of her eyes as an irrational sense of failure falls over her. She's not enough for him. She's not incentive enough to draw him back to his life. It seems that wherever he is, he's quite happy to stay there without her.

She can't stop touching him right now.

Because she is beginning to believe that this will be the last time she will have the chance.

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><p><strong>Just another reminder not to freak out, m'kay?<strong>


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Another shorty, but this one's **_**muuuuch**_** happier than the previous two. One more to go after this.  
>Disclaimer: Disclaimed.<strong>

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><p><strong>Part 4: Smell<strong>

He loves the smell of her on his pillow.

These days his favorite way to get a hit of her scent is to slide his arms around her, press his nose to her neck and inhale deeply. The act is intimate and just primal enough to excite, and he wonders if there isn't some logic behind this otherwise ridiculous vampire craze sweeping the globe right now. Because he swears sometimes she smells so good he just wants to bite into her.

But now…

She hasn't been in his bed for three days, and yet he can still smell the soap, shampoo and perfume medley that is undeniably _her_. It's a scent that he used to associate with friendship and partnership. A scent that used to make him think of shipping containers, stakeouts, movie nights and aircraft carriers. A scent that used to provide him with reassurance that there was someone watching his back and keeping him safe. Someone who provided safety amid chaos. Someone who just happened to have the greatest ass he's ever seen.

Things have changed in the last few months. Now that same smell conjures feelings of intimacy and desire. It makes him itch to touch her, kiss her, hold her. It elicits reactions in his body that used to require a fantasy or a hand. It summons memories of nights and weekends in her naked company and mornings wrapped around her and listening to her breathe.

And on mornings like this, when he's alone with the silence to indulge in such thoughts, her smell on his pillow reassures him that all of this—their relationship, her feelings, her presence in his life—is real. It's not one of the dozens of elaborate fantasies he once built in his head that he must be careful not to indulge in around her. It truly is the life he lives every day. There really is someone who loves him and who wants to spend her life with him. Someone who he knows will stick by him no matter what, because they've already been to heaven and hell together. Someone who thinks that he's good enough. Someone he loves back with every breath in his body.

It's all real.

As he curls himself around her pillow and draws a deep breath, it occurs to him that if she is imbedded in the fibers of his sheets and clothes, then surely his smell must be all over her. The idea flicks some kind of caveman switch in his head that finds this kind of intimate marking and possession unbelievably hot. Suddenly he's not content to be in this bed by himself.

He grabs his cell phone and speed dials the number he calls at least three times more than any other. When she answers she sounds slightly breathless and far too alert for 0700 on a Sunday. He briefly mourns that he'll never break her of her early morning running habit.

"Come over."

Her response is a correct assumption about the contents of his boxer shorts. He can think of no reason to deny her charge, and his already-encyclopedic knowledge of her triggers and urges allows him to make a confident guess about the state of her own 'contents'. She chuckles, but then folds so easily that he thinks she must have been on her way over anyway.

"I'll just take a shower," she says, and he's about to tell her not to bother. He loves the real smell of her. But he'll get enough of that later when he spends a sizeable chunk of his day kneeling at the foot of his bed and making her writhe. And anyway, she needs to top up her soap and shampoo signature on his pillows. If he spends much longer breathing into them the Zivaness might begin to fade away.

He loves the smell of her on his pillow.

Because it's undeniable evidence of why his life is so damn good.

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><p><strong>See? Happy. No need for freaking out.<strong>


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Here's the last chapter. Another shorty. Somehow the short ones are so much harder than the long ones, no?  
>Disclaimer: Disclaimed.<strong>

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><p><strong>Part 5: Taste<strong>

They're not used to the taste of success.

It seems that the universe has been conspiring against them from day one. At least, that's what she says. She believes in fate and _que serra, serra_. He believes in free will and being the captain of his soul. But still, he has to admit they've had a harder time than most.

His one-night stands, her one-night stands, bite marks and carpet burns. Womanizing frat boy and prick-teasing, terrifying ninja. Jeanne, Roy, Gibbs' rules and Jenny's death. Vance's orders and her father's lies. Tony's drinking and Michael Rivkin. Too shy, too scared, too proud, too far into denial. Missed chances, unspoken sentiments and bald-faced lying. Every reason under the sun not to, and every fiber of their being wanting to. Status quo: try not to acknowledge it and just learn to live with it.

But now…

They should have broken up a hundred times. But the thing that now keeps them together is the thing that used to keep them apart: loyalty. It used to be loyalty to Gibbs and his rules and their team. Now it is loyalty to each other above all else. Somewhere along the way they developed a shared determination to put themselves first. Because for all the action and aguish they've been through until this point, their lives are still only half lived. And he in particular cannot accept that 'half a life' is the best they can expect.

But as critical as that loyalty is, in the end their longevity might just come down to the art of knowing when to keep their mouths shut and when to surrender to the emotion. He'll never tell her he was terrified that they'd burn scorching hot for a few weeks before going though a supernova meltdown. She'll never tell him that she was terrified that their private life would end up being no different to their work life. He won't tell her how close he came to ending it in fury when she took on armed goons to give him time to escape without her. She won't tell him how close she came to ending it in fear when she realized he absolutely owned her heart.

But she will tell him that he makes her happy above all else. And he will never miss an opportunity to tell her he loves her. She will let countless arguments go by when she realizes that she loves him wholly for who he is, not who he could be. He will find an uncanny knack for compromise and patience. She will learn to trust him with every dark and hidden corner of herself, and he will come to accept that he does deserve her commitment and love. And although they'll break themselves and each other again and again, over time their wounds will heal around each other and make them tougher and stronger.

One day in the future they will reveal to each other their shared pride in their circumstances, even when underlined by an ongoing amazement that they got there at all. They both know it shouldn't have worked, and honestly there are times when it doesn't. But she knows she's where she's supposed to be, and he thinks he was right to wait around so long for her. Because there's nothing half-lived about their lives now.

They're not used to the taste of success.

But damn if it doesn't taste sweet.

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><p><strong>Thanks for reading! Now, on to something new.<strong>


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